In the last sixty years, the institutionalized cooperation between sovereign nation states in Europe has been a major success. Underpinned by a U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe, European integration …

Europe is beset with multiple, intersecting challenges and crises, among them unwelcome inward migration, suffocating indebtedness in the southern tier, rising populist nationalism evident from Britain and France to Hungary …

There is a well-known warning to all politicians seeking to sound convincing to their audiences: if you have to explain too much, you are losing them. If there are too many ambiguities in a message, you trip yourself up justifying them. The platform of the Munich Security Conference is a tough testing ground for all politicians given the enormous concentration on what is discussed there. This year’s meeting was no exception.